Supreme Court judge to conduct PCB chairman election

Updated: 31 October 2013 21:02 IST

A reliable PCB source said after the Election Commission of Pakistan informed the Islamabad High Court that it was not mandated to conduct the elections of the Board, the court had appointed retired justice Munir A Sheikh to conduct the election process in November.

Written by Press Trust of India

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Karachi:

A retired Supreme Court judge has been appointed for conducting elections for the post of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman.

The PCB will pay an amount of Rs 2.5 million for conducting the election.

A reliable PCB source said after the Election Commission of Pakistan informed the Islamabad High Court that it was not mandated to conduct the elections of the Board, the court had appointed retired justice Munir A Sheikh to conduct the election process in November.

"The Board has received the detailed order of the IHC single bench which had heard the constitutional writ petition against the election of Zaka Ashraf as PCB Chairman in May.

The IHC judge, Shaukat Siddiqui who has ordered the elections to be held afresh after declaring the election of Ashraf as null and void and also suspended the present caretaker Chairman, Najam Sethi from exercising his full powers has now ordered the retired judge to conduct the elections," the source said.

The source said that around 80 valid voters belonging to the affiliated regional, district and departments of the board would take part in the voting process in November. The PCB also received a setback today when the two-member divisional bench of the IHC with which the PCB has filed an appeal against the judgment of Justice Shaukat Siddiqui released its detailed judgement.

"The divisional bench while admitting the appeal petition of the Board for hearing has however issued no stay order against the earlier judgment of Justice Siddiqui," the source said.

Tafazzul Rizvi the legal counsel of the Board confirmed that as per the three-page detailed order of the divisional bench, Najam Sethi remained suspended as the PCB Chairman while the interim management committee formed by the Prime Minister to run cricket affairs until the elections had also been dissolved by the court.

"The court has ordered that the general body of the PCB will now supervise all day-to-day affairs of the Board until the elections are held," he said.

Pakistan cricket has remained in a state of uncertainty since the elections were held by Zaka Ashraf in May in rather questionable circumstances and a citizen filed a constitutional writ petition against the election process before IHC judge Siddiqui.